Index World Press Photo
December 2008 | Edition Eleven     

Ask The Experts usually features answers from four prominent members of the photojournalistic community to questions from visitors to the magazine.

But because the theme to this edition is so wide - the whole future of what we do - Enter put the questions this time and we have no fewer than fourteen experts answering them.

There is no doubt that more is going to be asked from photojournalists in the coming years.

There will - we all hope - still be many outlets for the more traditional forms of news journalism: dramatic, immediate, insightful and informative photography in newspapers and magazines.

But these ways of get the news to the people are in trouble, with only a few exceptions. Circulations are falling and with them, advertising revenue. Jobs are being lost, commissions and budgets cut.

So how can someone starting out on their career as a photojournalist plan for a future which is at best uncertain?

Three experts, Dave Clark, from the Dalian College of Image Art in China, freelance photographer Jimmy A. Domingo, from the Asian Center for Journalism in the Philippines and Kenny Irby from the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, all turn their attention to the fresh skills news photographers will have to learn.

The future of agencies is tackled by Louis Zaal, General Manager of Hollandse Hoogte in Amsterdam, David Larson, Managing Director of Africa Media Online and Shahidul Alam, founder of the Drik agency in Bangladesh.

Writing about the future of marketing are Evelien Schotsman, picture editor of Oxfam Novib and landscape, documentary and fine art photographer Simon Norfolk.

Photographer, author, lecturer and consultant Peter Krogh examines developing technologies and the future of galleries is the subject of the answer from Devika Daulet-Singh, an Indian-based Director of Photography. Delivery of photographic output is what concerns Paula Johas, a photo editor with the Brazilian newspaper OGlobo.

How different platforms can integrate and compliment each other is the subject of an answer from The New York Times's Assistant Managing Editor, Michele McNally. Can photographic books survive in an online world is something publisher Gigi Giannuzzi considers and the future of festivals is tackled by Paris-based lecturer, art critic and curator Simon Njami.

You can navigate to all these answers in the column to the left.


Ask the Experts edition 10
Ask the Experts edition 9
Ask the Experts edition 8
Ask the Experts edition 7
Ask the Experts edition 6
Ask the Experts edition 5
Ask the Experts edition 4
Ask the Experts edition 3
Ask the Experts edition 2
Ask the Experts edition 1


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